Island Architect Wins Big Grant to Promote Use of Solar Energy

If global warming is a subject that fails to grab you, or feels too
distant to be real, the next time you eat pancakes or French toast,
consider the source of your maple syrup.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, in the 1930s the
maple sugar industry was centered in Virginia. In the 1950s the industry
was centered in New England. Today it is centered in Canada.

"I think we are all kidding ourselves if we don't care
about global warming, especially on Martha's Vineyard," said
Kate Warner, a West Tisbury architect. Ms. Warner has taken her own
concerns about global warming and translated them into action.

Her one-woman company, Under the Sun, recently landed a $50,000
federal grant to promote the use of solar energy on the Vineyard in the
next year. The grant is from the U.S. Department of Energy's
Million Solar Roofs program, dedicated to promoting the use of
sustainable energy around the country. Ms. Warner was one of only five
other applicants in New England to receive the grant; the other
recipients were the state of Rhode Island, the state of Vermont, the
city of Newton and the city of Boston through Solar Boston.

The grant money will be used to promote awareness about solar energy
on the Vineyard over the next 12 months. Among other things, Ms. Warner
has made a commitment to develop 500 solar roofs on the Vineyard by the
year 2010. In October she will bring the Union of Concerned Scientists
to the Island to speak about global warming. She plans to develop a
community energy profile and plan for the Vineyard, with help from the
Cape Light Compact, which will gather energy data for the Cape and
Islands under a separate grant from the Massachusetts Renewable Energy
Trust.

"Climate change, growing population and demand for energy
threaten the economy of Martha's Vineyard and its way of
life," declared a recent press release about Ms. Warner's
grant.

Her commitment to developing more solar energy use on the Vineyard
is straightforward and real, both at work and at home. An architect who
has worked on the Vineyard since 1987, she decided about five years ago
to restrict her professional work to clients who agree to use some kind
of solar energy in their project. "I want clients who are willing
to give something back to the earth in return for the privilege of
building a house here," she said. Ms. Warner includes a solar
energy agreement in every contract with a client. Sometimes her
commitment comes at the expense of her own livelihood - in January
she was fired from a large job when the client decided to back out of
the solar energy agreement.

Since 1998, she has designed 12 solar energy systems on the
Vineyard, and a 13th system goes in this year. Her work ranges from a
charming, shingled all-solar summer cottage at Cape Pogue on
Chappaquiddick, to her own traditional New England-style homestead in
West Tisbury, where solar panels heat nearly all of her hot water and
generate most of her own electricity. At Ms. Warner's house, once
her electricity needs are met, the electric meter spins backwards,
feeding electricity into the NSTAR power grid and generating a credit
that results in a monthly electric bill of about three dollars.

She also drives a hybrid electric car.

Ms. Warner said she decided to apply for the Million Solar Roofs
grant earlier this year after a conversation with her sister about her
commitment to do concrete work to help the environment. Her
sister's advice: Do some networking and think about applying for a
grant.

Ms. Warner attended a conference in Boston that was convened to
discuss renewable energy and waste-to-energy issues. She overslept and
missed the 6 a.m. ferry, and got to the conference a little late in the
middle of a tedious discussion about protecting the economic interests
of the waste-to-energy industry.

But later on, a woman who was a spokesman for Solar Boston spoke and
got Ms. Warner's attention. She later contacted the woman, who
told her about the Million Solar Roofs project.

The grant application included a tangle of government requirements
that had little relevance for a sole proprietor rural architect. Her
sister, who has experience in writing grants, was blunt about the
outlook: A $50,000 government grant was hard to get and involved miles
of paperwork. But with help from her sister, Ms. Warner plowed through
the red tape and completed the application.

It was also a time when all her years of committee work and
attending meetings paid off. In order to complete the grant, Ms. Warner
needed a regional stamp of approval and some partners. She enlisted the
help of the Cape Light Compact, the Martha's Vineyard Commission,
NSTAR, the Cape and Islands Self Reliance Corporation and Mirant New
England, a new power supplier for the region.

"Suddenly all the years I had spent going to millions of
meetings finally fell into place," she said.

Ms. Warner has been coming to the Vineyard all her life. She began
working as an architect in New York in 1985. In 1987 she moved to the
Vineyard and began to work for West Tisbury architect Ben Moore. In 1991
she went out on her own. Along the way she was always interested in
energy issues, and she served as a member of the refuse district
committee. Several years ago she designed a home on the Vineyard using
recycled materials.

Concern about the use of renewable energy on the Vineyard is not new
- in the 1970s the Vineyard Energy Resource Group (ERG) was
actively devoted to promoting the use of solar energy. The group formed
partly in response to the energy crisis that had gripped the nation. But
with the advent of the 1980s and economic prosperity, the ERG faded out
of existence. Today on the Vineyard, energy awareness is hardly de
rigeur, and the narrow Island roads are clogged with gas-guzzling sport
utility vehicles.

"Someone said that the 1990s is a time in history when the
cars on the road are bigger and less efficient than the cars in the
landfill," Ms. Warner said.

She said there have been many advances in recent years in the
technology associated with solar electric panels, although ironically,
the vast majority of homeowners today are uneducated about solar energy.

"What I plan to do is to try these technologies out myself
before I try them on other people - and at the same time I will
reduce my own footprint," Ms. Warner said.

With the announcement about the Million Solar Roofs grant, Ms.
Warner encourages anyone with an existing solar system on the Vineyard
to contact her at Under the Sun, so the system can be counted toward the
goal of 500. She also held a women's solar potluck gathering at
her home in July, and plans to hold another one in September.

"There is nothing that means more to me than the Vineyard. I
just want other people to have it in the future, too," she said,
concluding: "We are a unique community, and there are a lot of
educated people who chose this place to be their home. Now we have an
opportunity to do something that can make a difference. We are a
definable geographic entity, and we can be a model for other
communities."